Good is Good, Great is Better
by Kuro49
Summary: Charles/Erik. Erik thinks Charles only sees the good in people. Charles knows Erik only sees the good in him.


Title taken from _Great is Better_ by Rabbit. Warnngs for vulnerable-esque!Erik being mildly manipulated by a creeper!Charles? (Yes, uncertainties are a definite thing when it comes to my fics.) I don't own! And may I mention how lovely the new 'world' tag is? *v*

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**Good is Good, Great is Better**

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When it only takes one bullet for everyone to live, a better man would have taken one to the head.

Instead, Charles is still looking for an opening in the cracks.

000

It is the night before Moira leans out of the window and announces that the verge of the war is announced. This is the night before he asks him to move the satellite. The night before the inevitable finally makes an appearance for a nasty showdown that tears apart their tiny sanctuary on earth.

"Erik, what do you think of me?"

There is the usual scotch and ice, fire in the fireplace. Chess and conversation they can't get off their chests. And this might as well be a genuine question Charles has always wanted to ask.

"Idealistic and… naïve."

Erik moves a rook as Charles shakes his head and says instead.

"You think I am dangerous and vulnerable and painfully easy."

"I—"

"I am all of those things."

Erik doesn't understand the smile on Charles' face.

000

The most attention and love he has ever received is the numbers tattooed onto his forearm. He can't remember the times before, where there are people one should recognize as their mothers and then their fathers and among it all, Hanukah candles that are burning just for them.

His perspective is warped and mangled and the faces he sees in his mind are blurry and out of focus. The glow is imminent, scorching and right now, all forgotten in the midst of anger and pain.

He doesn't know when he realizes. Maybe it is the moment when Charles finally asks him to play their first game of chess with a quirk of his head and a nervous gesture to the worn board. Or maybe it is the long days of driving in their search for more of anyone like them.

Just the same, there are no second thoughts.

He can't move submarines but he is trying with satellites. And just as he is with everything else, he can no longer help himself. Like the metal that curves with the simple stretch of his hands, he is in love, falling over his own two feet for a much better man.

He doesn't want to pull Charles to the corner of his mind where he has killed and slaughtered horrible men like pigs. He has wished Charles has never pulled him up and out of the water. He only ever wants to keep him dry and warm.

_Yes._

There is something sacred in protecting someone like Charles.

Because he shouldn't get hurt in ways Erik is distinctly familiar with.

000

"Do you still remember the first time I convinced you to stay?"

"…Yes. You told me I needed friends." He doesn't even try to forget, he only tries to will them away for another day or two but the memories surface like Charles is pulling at them from across the chessboard with nimble fingers at invisible strings.

"Is that why you stayed?"

The man's smile is soft and gentle like he is trying to slowly kill him with another dose of that distinct flavor of kindness Erik has never quite experienced before. But there are repercussions, painful ones that are looming right over them just waiting to wrap a hand around their throat. And squeeze.

"No. I stayed because it would be easier to find Shaw this way."

They are trying to avoid it but it is like the ocean currents pulling them a little further deeper when their confrontations graze a little too close to the truth.

And Charles is not solemn. He is simply taking in the offered trust because Erik doesn't lie.

"Do you regret it?"

Erik only knows how to run away.

"If I could I would kill him once more."

"Even if it meant—" _I was there to die a second time with him?_

The answer he couldn't say out loud is a resounding _yes_ that echoes in his head.

000

This is after everything that happens: The beach with the blood and sand that doesn't belong to him. This is about taking everything he loves away from him and leaving nothing left for the heart to pull itself back to more manageable pieces of two.

"I regret... that I obliged the very first time you asked me to stay."

"You didn't want—"

He casts his eyes to the wheelchair and the room reverberates a silence that only continues to condemn him for the rightful deeds that he has done for him, only to have it all end in the worst shades of wrong.

"I didn't want to learn that I could do this to you."

000

This is before he has come to terms with himself. Before his rehabilitation, and even before Erik sends a bullet into his back. This happens before all that and more. Because he doesn't really know anything but he already knows everything.

Charles gives him a warning. There is no menace and he doesn't take it with a grain of salt with the final shred of brutal kindness that Charles sheds. Instead, Erik takes it as a dare. Charles swallows and gives him one last warning before the world goes to hell.

"I'm damaged goods."

"You're perfect this way."

_No, I'm really not._

He seals his lips over his.

And Erik isn't blind to the truth. There are only ever lies from the start.

There are fingers pushing back against the layers trapped between them and blunt nails tracing the sliver of skin that sits between the waistband of his pants and the hiked up corner of his shirt. He presses his palms against the small of his back, pulling him in before pushing him back that tiny distance of what Charles now sees as the last fraction of his hesitance.

And then that too is gone as well.

000

Erik never realizes that it has never been mutual.

Because they can and there is no other way. Charles likes Erik more than Erik can ever even like Charles. But this isn't what being in love means. And at this point, Charles' use of the word _love_ is loose.

Erik thinks Charles only see the good in people.

But Charles knows Erik only sees the good in him. But he is so much more, he is an obsessed soul with no vengeance or hate, just a deep desire to have him all for himself.

Erik's body of metal, his heart of iron and that mind of steel. Charles can play the fragile boy who gets hurt but he is so much stronger than that. The sun seems to be getting bigger but the pain is quickly flaring to places he can't feel and he has run out of wishes to save him from the world lurking right at bay. Charles can't protect him forever. This is the best he can ever do.

_No._

Charles never tells him that this isn't love.

000

There are a lot of things Erik wants but this is not one of them.

Erik doesn't want to die on a Cuban beach.

XXX Kuro

;_; Why are they so tragically romantic: _It's a first kiss that lasts forever._


End file.
